Sewri Tuberculosis (TB) Hospital has received a surprise New Year gift in the form of latest state-of-art equipment worth Rs36 lakh from nominated corporator Professor Avkash Jadhav from his allotted corporator fund.

Donated equipment include:

‘Double lumen endo tracheal tubes’ (used by anaesthetist for the rare one lung anaesthesia done only in Sewri TB Hospital in Mumbai).

The other equipment included ‘linear stapler guns with cartridges’ (used in supra major thoracic surgeries to close the airway when one or part of the lung is removed).

Vaccus suction (specialised suction tubes to suck out the large quantity of various fluids like pus, blood, wate from inside the open chest walls).

Endo staplers of various kinds along with reloads (used as specialised material for thoracoscopic surgeries).

“We never had these important equipment before. Operations which took 8 to 12 hours will now be conducted in 4 to 5 hours because of these essential and highly advanced surgical equipment,” said a beaming Dr Jagish Keni, dean of the GTB hospital Sewri.

He said the donation has also helped create a buzz word in the society as the hospital has started receiving calls for donation.

Professor Avkash Jadhav, had visited TB hospital in the month of October 2016. Seeing the need to upgrade the equipment used in the hospital, he decided to utilise his corporator fund for the benefit of TB patients.

“It was a challenging experience when I had to ask for funds from BMC. They initially refused saying corporator fund cannot be used in the health sector. I had to struggle and managed to get a sanction for the same,” said Jadhav.

Jadhav was shocked to hear the reasons given to him by BMC for refusing to sanction the corporator fund. “I was taken aback when I was told that corporators take funds only for pipeline, road construction etc. No corporator has ever asked funds for health sector. Health being important issue in each ones lives. It is being neglected which is when I decided to donate,” said Jadhav.

The hospital at Sewri is largest hospital in Asia for TB. It caters to patients suffering from pulmonary TB and its various complications. It has the capacity of 1200 beds, out of which 200 beds are for the deadly Multiple Drug Resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) patients. Patients from across India visit the hospital for its quality of the surgical treatment of pulmonary TB.

“I am stunned and surprised that a first time corporator has taken such an important step which will be beneficially to people across India. These equipment are very useful in performing rare surgeries,” said Dr Lalitkumar Anande, chief medical officer and surgeon at the hospital.